His Name Was Peter
by nekoue
Summary: The story of Peter Pettigrew before he was the man we hate him for being told in seven rides on the Hogwarts Express, and in one very dark night.


His name was Peter and he was a short, plump boy with a nervous disposition. He hurried along the crowded train station trailing after his mother who was as equally as stout, his mousy hair bouncing. The pair made their way through a tremendous throng as many children and adults flocked about, each eager to reach their desired destination.

"Peter!" his mother called sharply to him, her brightly polished fingers snapping at him when the lad had slowed, distracted by a half-naked woman who was pushing a heavily loaded trolley before her. "Shameful!" his mother scoffed loudly that all might hear as she wrapped her floral over jacket more tightly about her as though she may at any moment be stripped of it.

Peter, as if by design nodded his head in eager agreement. It was rare for Peter to have any opinions on any subject or matter, and if he did it was wrong, his mother made sure to tell him so. It wasn't long however before they came to a halt. They stood momentarily before a pillar positioned between stations nine and ten. "Now, it's perfectly alright if you're scared Peter." The beady eyed woman said in a tone that fell somewhere between reassuring and patronizing.

"But I'm not scared mum!" the boy said his own eyes twinkling with eagerness and wonder.

"Peter!" his mother snapped sharply as though she had caught him stealing from the cookie jar.

The boy scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground, his face sullen and guilty as though what he had just said had been found out to be a lie. "Sorry mum." He murmured, eyes down cast. The shrill woman looked at him over her horn-rimmed spectacles; her lips pursed sourly but said nothing more. Then mother and son took a few quick strides ahead directly at the column. To most minds what happened next would have seemed impossible, but the two stepped beyond the very stone that they had been standing beside. For them however it was quite normal, she a witch, and he a wizard, in training.

The other side of that pillar was indeed another platform in and of itself, platform 9¾, to be exact, and it was far livelier than the one they had only just left. Owls soared down from above them on silent wings, screams sharply emitted from their beaks as they delivered letters or merely sought out their owners. The lad was awed, he had little time to take in all the sights and wonders before him however as his mother had caught him sharply by the ear and hauled him toward the boarding plat form.

Once standing beside the train the pink clad woman patted her eyes with a handkerchief. "Now," she sniffled making a show of how much she cared for her son, Peter's toes curled with anxiety within his shoes as he quickly surveyed his fellow classmates gawking at the spectacle. His shoulders hunched and he did his best impression of glass window. "You be safe my dear, write me when you arrive and another when you are sorted, and after every class!" she painstakingly sobbed each word.

"Mum!" Peter moaned, but the sharpness that quickly inhabited her eyes told him that they were playing another one of her games, overly affectionate in public, bordering neglect at home. "Y-you know I will," he smiled, she knew he could do better than that, her thinly plucked brows said just that. "I love you!" he said embracing her greatly as a war within himself raged, a part of him declaring his words a lie, the other half denying that he could be such a terrible person as to not to love the woman who gave him life.

"Oh!" she gushed happy that her game was being played. "I love you too!" she said before marking his forehead with her ruby lipstick. The whistle blew and Peter managed to squirm free from her crushing gasp and into the safety of the students crowding aboard. Peter sighed with relief before setting about finding a place to sit.

It was a fruitless effort on his behalf as many of the compartments were full, and he was quickly shunned from those with any spare room. Glum he continued, the train well on its way to Hogwarts. It was as he was entering another car when he came upon a ruckus bunch of boys, all lean and tall and laughing.

"Slytherin!" the one with glasses scoffed shaking his head.

"I'd die!" another said, this one with a mane of black hair. "Family'd love it though!" he was shoved playfully by the first when he said this.

"And what did you call him?" chuckled the third brushing a stray lock of fair hair across his brow.

"Snivellus!" the two chortled at him.

When they spotted Peter they all stopped and looked at him as though he might at any moment sprout a second head. The boy in glasses approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You know," he said. "They do allow you to bring your own owls, you didn't have to smuggle yours under your shirt!" The trio laughed heartily, glasses clapping him on the back.

"Yeah," said the boy with the long mane like hair as he made his way towards them. "And what, is that from your girlfriend or something?" he asked tapping Peter's forehead. Peter blushed furiously, ashamed of the way he looked and at his foolishness in not wiping clean his face which he now did frantically as the others had their lark. He, tears in his eyes looked at the long, lean, and handsome group before him, and only felt worse.

After a time glasses said, "What's your name then?"

"P-peter." Peter said, he voice was weak and broken. "P-Peter Pettigrew."

"Well, Peter, I'm James," he said. "And this is Sirius, and-" he paused after motioning to the boy who'd mocked the lipstick on his forehead.

"Remus!" piped up the sandy haired lad, reminding him.

"And that's Remus." James said wrapping an arm around Peter's shoulder directing him to an empty booth. "And we'd like you to sit with us!" Nervous and unsure of what to do the boy followed, he would later be mocked and ridiculed the entire ride only to have them apologize later. It was this first encounter that would set the pace for their patronizing friendship, and Peter would let them do it too, for everyone needed friends.

In his second year Peter's ride to Hogwarts went much the same as his first, but in his third year the entire train was abuzz with life. "Did you hear?" Sirius asked climbing hurriedly into the compartment with the rest of the gang who had dubbed themselves the Marauders. "Jeremy Clarkson's dead!"

"I heard!" James said his face just as earnestly concerned as the new arrival's.

"We were just talking about him." Remus informed him his eyes down cast and weary, and voice gentle as if in reverence.

"It's a shame really." Sirius said taking a seat beside Peter and across from James. All of the boy's nodded.

"Did you hear how it happened?" James questioned. "Pinned under a car like that, it must have been terrible!" Peter squirmed in his seat, he really didn't like thinking about these kinds of things, and currently he could not banish images of people trapped beneath vehicles, their form crushed and bloody. He thought desperately of changing the subject, but he knew he never would.

"I'm really going to miss him!" Remus sighed then, surprising Peter who now stared at him.

"Me too!" "Same here!" the others chimed in, Peter was quick to agree, although he didn't know why. Jeremy had been two years their senior and rarely had any interactions with any of the four of them, and if he had it had been an unpleasant one.

"Do you remember the time he ran into our potions class screaming that sprites had stolen his underwear and Slughorn spilt his calming daught all over the floor!" Sirius chuckled all too amused by his story.

"Or the time he carried the quaffle through the ring in a series of loop-the-loops before a bludger got 'im?" James laughed, the others nodded avidly.

Peter who sat against the window was stewing in his own self-hatred, he was such a terrible person, but he couldn't think of a single nice thing Jeremy had ever done. Come to think of it, he was rather a bit of an ass and ways cruel or treating girls with careless abandon. His brow furrowed as he gazed at his friends, didn't they used to hate Jeremy, mock him openly? Why now did they speak of him like he was some sort of folk hero? People always speak better of the dead he thought then with a shrug, and so went the rest of the ride, a tribute to the boy they spoke of as if he were one of them, Peter struggling against his own thoughts.

By the time Peter had found his friends in their fourth year the others were eagerly engaged in a discussion about the attractiveness of the gentler sex with whom they studied magic. Sirius was just wrapping up what had likely been a lengthy speech about large breasts and round back sides when he took his seat. He went to further explain that, that was why he preferred their new Astronomy teacher to any of the student body.

"No!" James sneered loudly, shoving the other boy roughly.

"Like you've got a chance!" Remus chortled beside him.

"You wanna bet?" Sirius asked his tone cocky yet deadly serious at the same time. Peter laughed at their infectious joy. Hearing him Sirius turned on him. "So, have you got a sweet lady then?" he asked brows arched skeptically. "Or just mummy dearest?"

The others bellowed with laughter as Peter turned a dark and vivid red. "No!" he protested looking at his friends angrily.

"Then who?" Sirius interjected. After a moment of silence they began their uproar again.

"Felicity Sharpe!" Peter exclaimed loudly hoping to extinguish their jeers.

"The Hufflepuff?" Remus asked then leaning forward.

"The fat Hufflepuff!" James corrected him elbowing his friend's ribs playfully as Peter shrunk into himself.

After a time things seemed to come to a head as the laughing died down and the hyenas the boy found himself riding with regained control of themselves. It was then that Sirius peered out the window looking into the hall and said, "Oh, Peter!" suddenly. "I just saw the trolley lady, could you grab me some beans?" he asked pointing to the door, he batted his eyes for extra measure.

Peter was on his feet before he knew it, always the one to do favors for his friends, or anyone. He didn't know why, after the way Sirius had been acting he wanted to tell him to get his own damn flavored beans, but he remained quiet, he knew better. Once he was in the hall he was quite perplexed, as the trolley lady was nowhere to be found. "Felicity!" James called leaning his head through the doorway. From down the hall a girl turned. Grabbing Peter's trousers Sirius heaved them down underwear and all.

Felicity and the girls she had been with shrieked loudly before turning and fleeing. The commotion brought others into the hall as the bare Peter crying pounded on the door, the combined weight of his three companions keeping it tightly shut as they held it closed…

In his fifth year the ride to Hogwarts began quietly. Peter attributed this entirely to the fact that James and Sirius weren't speaking to one another for a reason he could get neither to disclose. "H-how was your summer?" Remus tried after a while smiling a bit at Peter.

Peter shrugged. "It was alright, and yours?"

"Same." Remus said indifferently as he stretched out his long legs, aching from his recent growth spurt.

There was another long stretch of silence, then Sirius coughed. After a moment he coughed again, only this time it was in an ill-fated attempt to hide the insult of "Ass-hole." In an instant James had leaped across his seat and onto the other boy. They rolled about the confining space throw both insults and punches crushing the other two against the door. Peter's heart raced anxiously, his hands fidgeting, but he didn't know what he could do to stop any of it, his pleas falling short a few inches away from his mouth.

A solid kick suddenly collided with Remus's head as the two grappled one another by the fronts of their shirts. "That's it!" he roared before leaping into the fray swinging wildly at both of them while simultaneously shouting for them to grow up and stop fighting. Frightened and battered by stray blows Peter quickly escaped the madness only to sit in the hall until a pair of prefects fetched by a concerned Ravenclaw came to break up the brawl stationing each of them in a separate compartment.

Sitting alone the plump youth would cast nervous glances at James and Remus, who he could see from where he sat. Both had swollen faces, and James a black eye. He didn't like alone, it made him feel lost. He sighed wondering if he would ever discover the reason behind the bout of combat, he never would.

In their sixth year the four of them were confident in their abilities, three animagi, one werewolf a cloak of invisibility to share between them and the greatest map in existence! "So, Honeydukes?" Remus asked leaning casually back as they rode along.

"Definitely!" Sirius said slapping him a high five as he and James looked over their master piece, Dumbledore pacing in his office as he waited for the train. "This is brilliant!" he commented sweeping the hair from his view.

"I know!" James readily agreed. There was a knock at the door and the map was quickly hidden.

"C-come in!" Sirius piped up stuffing the enchanted paper beneath his rear.

Sticking his head in through the booth door, greasy black hair falling in his pale face Severus sneered at them. "You haven't seen Lily have you?" he asked as though it hurt to do so.

"Get out of here Snivellus!" James yelled loosing a shoe from off his foot and hurling it at the other boy, who managed to duck out of the way.

"Yeah, Snivellus Greasy!" Sirius shouted. "Stay out!" Remus pounding loudly on the door as he shut it before mocking howls. The group laughed as the other boy gave flight, even Peter who had never felt more of the group than before.

They spent their journey laughing and joking, discussing their summers and their plans for the map! As they were nearing the station however, James noticed the shadowed silhouettes of a pair of girls changing in the compartment across from them and made sure the other did as well. "Hey!" Sirius exclaimed after a moment of thought. "Peter!" he then said jovially throwing an arm about his shoulders. "I just had the most wonderful idea!"

"What?" Peter asked skeptically as they looked at one another.

"You see those shapely shadows over there?" he asked pointing across the hall.

"Yeah." Peter nodded feeling dwarfed by Sirius' height.

"Well, I think we'd all like to see just a bit more!" he said eyes sparkling. "Now, what I need you to do is turn into your ratty little self and sneak in there frightening them out!" he explained as though he were commenting on the weather.

"No!" Peter barked loudly.

"Oh come on!" Remus laughed patting his back.

"Yeah, what's the matter with you Pete?" James asked. "Rather spook boys instead?" he mocked.

Peter looked at them angrily shoving Sirius' hand away. He took a deep breath then, and wand in hand set free that breath. The world was much different as a rat, for one thing the colors seemed muted, almost cloudy somehow, and the smells the world gave off seemed much more pungent to his pink and delicate nose, the sounds of the train beneath him and friends on either side, thunderously loud. From well above him, his clothes bundled in hand James gave his a thumbs up. "Way to go!" Remus smiled.

"Yeah, we salute you!" Sirius said standing at attention a hand held to his brow.

Sighing Peter glanced both ways to be sure the coast was clear before scurrying quickly across the hall and to the door on the other side. Peter disliked his ability to squeeze into tight spaces like he did, feeling his ribs bend to accommodate his organs only slight protection as they gave way to confined space though which he was crawling. It was a bit uncomfortable, and disturbed him endlessly. He silently pressed his way through a gap between the door and wall and looked up as the scarcely clothed young women, his heart did a somersault.

It only took them a few moments to spot him, but when they did one threw a purse which crashed painfully down upon him as he turned to run. They however beat him to the door, receiving a chorus of jeers and howls as they ran down the corridor in only their under garments, one covering her chest having forgotten her bra. The next several moments were those of a mad dash as fellow students pursued or fled from Peter, finally however he was able to make it back to his friends and his clothes where he quickly became human again, but more than that he was hero to his friends, and he rather liked that.

As the Marauders returned home for the last time Peter couldn't help but feel that much had changed between them now. He looked about himself, Sirius had fallen asleep, his head lulled against the window his breath fogging it. Remus sitting on the bench beside the sleeping boy had his long legs lying across Sirius' lap as he ravenously delved into a new book. To his left James sat his eyes closed gently, Lily's head resting on his shoulder as he whispered to her how sorry he was to see her go a hand on her waist. Peter felt out of place, he wanted to do something but he didn't know what and so he sat quietly in teary dismay as he felt himself choke up.

When the train finally pulled into King's Cross they each took with them their luggage, Lily and James kissed and then the four were left standing quietly beside one another. "I-I guess I'll see you guys later…" Remus offered as the weight of their parting was made real.

"Yeah!" Sirius said in an overly cheery tone. "Without a doubt!"

James laughed. "There's nothing that could pry us apart, we're the Marauders!" he said holding out his hand palm down.

The others piled theirs atop his, after a moment Peter sighed remorsefully. "I really am going to miss you guys!" he said only to receive jeers and shoving from the others, and for once he didn't mind…

Peter hadn't really thought he would ever see any of his friends again, but he was wrong. He'd seen them every time the Order gathered. They'd changed over the few years they had been parted; Remus had been working towards becoming a teacher at their old alma mater, James and Lily married and Sirius lead a devilishly loose bachelor's life, bragging about it often. They were still friends though, and he was glad.

And now he stood, James' body growing cold at his feet. A small shrieking sob wracked his body as he covered his face with his hands. What had he done? How had he even gotten here? Such questions caused the man to sway with unease. Tears blurred his vision and burned his eyes as he looked at his friend, his eyes bulging and lifeless. Somewhere upstairs the baby continued to wail. Quickly as if to distance himself from his guilt Peter darted up the stairs, taking the, two and three at a time in his effort. Reaching the nursery he found lying Lily dead and crocked on the floor, her phoenix tail hair spread in a curtain over her face, and in the crib the baby, Harry screamed loudly out of fear and need of his parents.

Peter looked again but saw no sign of the dark lord, a shiver ran through him as he stood surrounded by the suffocating night. He squeezed shut his eyes willing himself to be back aboard the train, away from the dead, away from the dark and most importantly away from the man he had become. He opened his eyes however, and found this world all too real as his fingers trembled in their grip of his wand. He glanced back the way he had come, James, he hadn't wanted any of this; he doubted anyone would believe him, if he believed himself. For as much as he loved James he hated him for the constant hell he and the others had put him through.

Faster than he could have willed himself not to think it however, an old idea raced through his brain, people always speak better of the dead. What joyous memories would cloud other's minds when they thought of James? Surely his evils against Peter would be forgotten, and even those against Severus Snape as well. No Peter thought shaking his head gravely James would without a question be recalled a hero of his time and only because of death's visit.

Peter's entire body trembled with fear, regret and self-loathing, he'd been their secret-keeper, why had he been their secret-keeper? He sobbed sharply before casting his eyes at the babe, helpless and very alone, this child the dark lord, or He-who-must-not-be-named sought to vanquish. Perhaps if he killed him the other Death Eaters wouldn't do the same to him, he quickly banished the wretched thoughts shaking them violently from his mind. "No!" he screamed loudly and in anguish as he fell to his knees. He had never wanted any of the to die, how, how could he have known he thought in denial to himself.

He sat there for several moments in torment and disbelief, crying much as the baby before him, his body rocking and fists colliding violently with his head. He was felt sick, his stomach wracked with pain as he struggled not to vomit. He wanted to die, but …Oh how he hated himself! He was a bloody damned coward! Able to betray his friends but unable to take his own life. He wailed again, and loudly.

Peter didn't know where he would go, where he could go. None of the Order would offer him aid, he had betrayed them all, the blood of both Lily and James made slick and red his hands. The Death Eaters would surely slay him for the dark lord's defeat was delivered, unknowingly at his prompting. He had no idea as to where life would take him at that moment, but he knew whatever he was going to do he had to do it fast as the Potter's Muggle neighbors gathered outside attracted by explosions and Lily's screams no doubt.

Squeezing shut his eyes he retreated far away trying desperately to recall quiet and sunny days with his friends, the halls of Hogwarts, the taste of filched candy, stolen from Honeydukes after it had closed hidden beneath the cloak with the others, he tried to recall their laughter James and his, but to no avail as all fond memory fled from his grasp as though condemning him.

Taking a breath he rose, wand gripped tightly in grim a determination as he turned and made his way to the top of the stairs his body ached with guilt, and his fingers throbbed with thought of what was about to occur. Making his way outside he looked at the fear reflected in the eyes of the neighbors who had come to stand in the street in wonder and concern, he slowly let loose his breath, he knew exactly what he was going to do, he lifted up his wand…


End file.
